1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for producing hydrogen.
2. Description of Prior Art
The prior art method for producing hydrogen on an industrial scale is to pass H.sub.2 O vapor through heated fossil fuels such as coal or petroleum which mainly consist of hydrocarbon and sometimes by taking advantage of the combustion heat of the fossil fuels.
Electrolysis of water is also employed to produce hydrogen but this, too, depends on fossil fuels which are on the verge of exhaustion in the sense that it requires electric energy which is generated by burning the same fuels. In addition to that, since the conventional art of producing hydrogen is accompanied by discharge of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide acid gas, there is a great anxiety about the aggravation of environmental pollution by industrial wastes which have already increased to an unbearable extent in proportion to the industrial development.
A process for producing hydrogen by using water, calcium bromide and mercury compounds at a temperature not higher than 1000.degree. C. in a nuclear reactor was patented in France in 1970 (French Pat. No. 2,035,558). But two serious defects make this process infeasible for largescale production. For one thing, even if caution is exercised not to discharge the mercury compounds which are very poisonous by themselves, people living in the neighborhood of plants as well as engineers working there are soon exposed to a great hazard by accidental discharge or by leakage from the plant. For another, the choice of materials to make reaction vessels is very limited on account of the high temperature (as high as 700.degree. to 800.degree. C.) adopted in the reaction of a conjugate system comprising water and halides.
Therefore, there has been a great need in the art concerned to develop a novel technology which not only obviates the use of the fossil fuels that will dry up in the long run but which also is clean in the sense that nobody has to worry about environmental disruption it may cause or any poisons it may discharge.
As a result of our devoted efforts, the present inventors have found a novel process for producing hydrogen and oxygen in which only water is continuously fed into the reaction system and heat having a temperature of not higher than 1000.degree. C. is utilized. There are three advantages which are worth special mention in this process: first, in the process of this invention, fossil fuels whose scarcity and tendency to be more costly than ever before is worldwide are neither used as the source of heat nor as the starting material that is continuously fed into the reaction system; secondly, it does not need to use any intermediate reaction products which are extremely poisonous; and thirdly, no wastes that may be ecologically undesirable will be discharged from the reaction system of this process.